The Embodiment of Service

offers premium lingerie by brands such as Marie Jo, Andres Sarda, Aubade, and swimwear by Watercult in self-managed stores in England, Spain, Denmark, and Germany.

Tailor-Made Service

Female customers are welcomed to the store by qualified lingerie stylists instead of sales personnel. “We invest a huge amount of effort in the training of our stylists. They have to have service running through their veins, because we sell premium lingerie. Due

The store design of the branch in Munich is based on the flair of a London boutique. to our parent company Van de Velde, which has been producing quality lingerie in Belgium since 1919, we can enable our employees to acquire the necessary professional competence by allowing them to visit the production facility on a regular basis”, says Liesbeth Delmote, the retail manager for Rigby & Peller in Germany. She is, among other duties, responsible for the nine stores that exist in Germany since 2012, as well as the future expansion of the brand, which will include franchise concepts.

The Personal Shape ID

Customers can arrange personal styling appointments at Rigby & Peller at any time. The heart and soul of the elegant boutique in Munich’s Sendlinger Strasse is the area that houses the spacious changing rooms, which are staged in the accordance with the consistent Rigby & Peller design concept based on comfortable London boutique flair. The first step is detailed figure guidance for every customer, which is executed by utilising a specially developed and patented size mirror. The term “size mirror” is meant quite literally, as a complex arrangement of 3D cameras behind the mirror captures more than 40 parameters of the customer’s upper body before transmitting the ideal bra size to the stylist’s iPad within minutes. On request, the customer can archive her so-called Shape ID at Rigby & Peller for use during the next shopping spree. For those who think the process is too technical and not romantic enough, there is always the possibility to imagine a friendly lady with the tape measure in the mirror - even though she isn’t really there.

Rigb y & Pe ller

Sendlinger Strasse 36, Munich/Germany www.rigbyandpeller.com Opening: March 2013 Owner: Rigby & Peller Sales area: 50 sqm Brands: Andres Sarda, Aubade, Cyell, Marie Jo, Marie Jo L’Aventure, Maryan Mehlhorn, Prima Donna, Prima Donna Twist, Watercult.

The spacious changing rooms are the central element of every store. The specially developed size mirror is a truly groundbreaking service element.

Rigby & Peller focuses on high-quality products, which are priced accordingly.

Not Raw, But Mature

Mil k/Mun ich . Prepare to enter a world created by a blend of “Alice in Wonderland” and Jules Verne’s epic novel “Around the World in Eighty Days”. Experience long-gone aesthetics that are far removed from the common perception of Romanticism. Jochen Hornberger and Allen Popovic equipped their little store named Milk with vast amounts of design, creative ideas, and Boho-chic.

Text: Isabel Faiss. Photos: Milk Delicately drawn decoupage motifs show old maps that embellish the fronts of furniture pieces. Hot-air balloons soar up the walls while excited ostriches peek around the corner. The Milk store in Munich’s Glockenbach district is a time machine that takes you back to the nostalgia around the turn of the century and the beginnings of the Art Deco era in the early 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless it also leads its visitors deep into the world of contemporary fashion with newcomer brands such as Nice Things or Indi & Colt. The Noa Noa label contributes roughly 30% to the store’s entire product range, which is quite logical since the owners have been running a Noa Noa franchise store at this address for the last five years, as well as further franchise stores in Munich’s “Schellingstrasse” and in Regensburg. However, the shop has been deliberately pursuing a more progressive purchasing strategy to expand its customer base. Jochen Hornberger and Allen Popovic discovered all the other brands in stock during the fashion week in Berlin. Even though the two owners dislike the term Boho-chic, it is the quintessence of their style statement. They attach great importance to supplying its customers with a shopping basket containing a coherent look

The decoration elements are for sale alongside the fashion items. The owners also run an interior design store in Munich that opened many years ago and have an eye for beautiful things. that gives the buyer the satisfying feeling that three items can be combined to twelve different stylings. This makes the purchasing process highly demanding, but also more rewarding. “I always think in entire outfits. I choose the items with a strong identity first and get increasingly pragmatic towards the end.”

Shriller And De-Romanticised

“We deliberately looked for fashion that shows a certain consistency beyond a season, that mainly draws its inspiration from the past and doesn’t take itself too seriously”, Jochen Hornberger explains. As a fashion design graduate who was awarded a lectureship at the German Master School for Fashion he has the professional competence to do just that. He opened his first fashion store in Munich together with his business and life partner Allen Popovic seven years ago, but shut the operation down just one and a half years later. Back then his store exclusively focused on Danish brands, which was unusual at the time and corresponded with the raw concept known as “Lait Cru” (French for raw milk). The name Milk was born out of a maturation process that the duo underwent in the last few years. The new store is shriller, de-romanticised, more modern, and more grown-up.

No More Prams

The passing trade in the district has also changed significantly over the last five years. “In the past our classic customer was a young mother. We don’t see many prams now. This environment is now mainly inhabited by people who are even better off than before, which is also caused by the rental rate around here. Today we are the only remaining inner city district that houses small individual boutiques instead of large fashion chains”, Jochen Hornberger says. Milk has settled in a highly demanding environment - an environment in which comparability is seen as an insult. However, the elaborate store design and the sophisticated fashion range ensure that the two passionate owners will never have a reason to feel offended.

Milk

Reichenbachstrasse 41 Munich/Germany www.facebook.com/ MilkMuenchen Opening: August 2013 Owners: Jochen Hornberger, Allen Popovic Sales area: 60 sqm Brands for women: Avoca, Indi & Cold, Kaffe, La Fee Maraboutee, Noa Noa, Q.

Rich colours instead of milky white. Gifted interior designers Jochen Hornberger and Allen Popovic deliberately chose rich colours for their Milk store.

The store interior with its diagonally ascending shelves was a real sensation at the start and underlined the shop’s “concept store” claim.

She preferably sells what she would like to wear herself - Bettina Müller in the Antonio Marras showroom.